States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness

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An investigation into conscious experience, bringing together material from psychiatric studies and scans of traumatised brains with related paintings and installations.

Formation of Alzeimer Plaque

Cajal Legacy. Instituto Cajal (CSIC). Madrid

Vladimir Nabokov, Alphabet in Color

Jean Holabird

Descartes, View of Posterior of Brain

Wellcome Library, London

Les Reves et les Moyens de les Diriger

Yale University, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

A practitioner of Mesmerism using Animal Magnetism

Wellcome Library, London

Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781

Trustees of the British Museum

Consciousness is a universal part of everyday life, yet it remains difficult to define exactly what it encompasses. This exhibition draws on the work of artists, psychologists, philosophers and neuroscientists in order to explore the full spectrum of conscious experiences, looking particularly the areas where uncertainty exists – from anaesthesia to synaesthesia, sleepwalking to memory loss.

Thematic displays explore interesting juxtapositions; science vs the soul, sleep vs awake, being vs not being. Bringing these ideas to light are neuron drawings by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the man credited as the founder of neuroscience; Vladimir Nabokov’s Alphabet in Color, which illustrates his synaesthetic perceptions; and archive material from the first trial where insanity of sleep was successfully used as a defence.

Artistic material includes a preparatory sketch for Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting, The Nightmare and Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document drawings, which chart her changing relationship with her son as he begins to develop speech.

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A project space has been built into the gallery in order to host a series of changing installations. The first comes from artist Imogen Stidworthy whose work contrasts the language acquisition of a young child with that of a stroke patient with aphasia.